London, 1840: Penny dreadfuls are surging in popularity and are believed to be a corrupting influence on the city’s lower-class residents. When aristocrat Lord William Russell is brutally murdered in his home, is a book to blame?

Starring: prime suspect François Corvoisier, a valet of Russell's who claimed in court that William Harrison Ainsworth's crime novel Jack Sheppard drove him to the violent deed.

What it is: the forgotten story of the military wives who mobilized to bring their POW husbands home from Vietnam.

How they did it: Afterforming the National League of Families, the women organized media campaigns, lobbied politicians, learned encryption to send and receive coded messages (earning the nickname "Jane Bonds"), and even negotiated directly with the North Vietnamese.

Reviewers say: Book clubs will flock to this "unputdownable" tale (Library Journal) that "begs for discussion" (Booklist).

What it is: a fast-paced account of the notorious 1893 Lizzie Borden murder trial that utilizes court transcripts, newspaper accounts, and recently discovered letters written by Borden herself to argue that the jury who acquitted her got it wrong.

About the author: Debut author Cara Robertson is a lawyer and former Supreme Court clerk who spent 20 years researching the Borden case.

What it's about: how a single pivotal season signaled American's ascent to the world stage.

Topics include: Charles Lindbergh's ambitious transatlantic flight; Babe Ruth's career-best record of 60 home runs; the production of The Jazz Singer (the first "talking picture"); Al Capone's reign of terror.

What it is: an evocative social history that explores how "the crime of the decade," an unsolved 1922 double homicide, may have inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to write The Great Gatsby.

Why you might like it: Thrilling, rich in detail, and sprinkled with a hint of gossip, Careless Peopleblends aspects of biography, history, and true crime to vividly recreate the glamorous milieu of the Roaring Twenties.

What it's about: In the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide, a small group of American rescuers, led by Methodist minister Asa Jennings, successfully evacuated more than 250,000 Greek and Armenian refugees from the Great Fire of Smyrna (in present-day Turkey).

Is it for you? This richly contextualized account explores the 500 years of conflict between Greece and Turkey that precipitated the tragedy.